Business: AND, IN RUSSIA...

The Kremlin insists that inflation does not exist in the Soviet Union,
and there is no Western-style CPI to disprove the claim. Nonetheless,
consumer prices are raised at times by state decree; the government
represents those changes as progress toward a more rational ordering of
the controlled economy. Last week such "progress" cost Soviet consumers
dearly.

Coffee drinkers, a minority among tea-drinking Russians, suffered most.
The price of a pound soared from $2.62 to $13. Gasoline doubled, to
$1.30 per gal., and 4 million private car owners will also pay 30% more
to get those autos serviced. Gold-jewelry prices leaped 60%, though...